COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- A team of four physicists was arrested this morning at the headquarters of the American Physical Society (APS) in College Park, MD. Plain-clothed officers from the Department of Homeland Security entered the building around 8:30 a.m. and detained the suspects without incident. The group is charged with breaking and entering a secure government facility, destruction of government property, stealing national secrets and parking illegally.

[Photo taken by a building employee as the suspects were being escorted out.]

During the APS March Meeting held in Dallas, Texas, the individuals traveled 30 miles south to Waxahachie, Texas, and entered the five remaining buildings of the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC).

To gain access to the facility they allegedly tore apart a cargo bay door. Police suspect that scientific equipment, framed photos, signs and a mug shot were all stolen from the site as trophies. The group supposedly took over 300 photos of their exploits, which may used by the prosecution at their impending trial. While they allegedly committed these crimes, their rented minivan was parked in a handicap parking spot resulting in a $250 parking fine. One member of the group said, “Yes, the parking ticket was just rancid icing on this most untasty cake.”

The Department of Homeland Security was alerted to the team’s exploits after their blog post about their adventures became viral. An anonymous source tipped off the department after reading the post, which had been featured on SlashDot, PhysicsWorld, BoingBoing and Reddit.

“I was appalled that that a team of physicists would not only break into a national lab which still houses government secrets but then brag about it! I had to let someone know so that this behavior did not continue and the group would have to answer for their crime," the informant said. Though the Waxahachie police station directly across the street saw some unusual activity on the buildings’ roofs, they chose not to act. “We just thought it was some birds or something. We didn’t think it was that big a deal,” one Waxahachie police officer said before returning to his coffee and jelly donut.

The quartet is currently being housed in the Riverdale, MD, penitentiary to await extradition to Texas. The fifth member of the team remains at large and is suspected to have fled to Arizona. This is the third arrest for one of the team and he may be eligible to be prosecuted under the Texas “three strikes” law, possibly leading to a much longer sentence.

Closed down in 1993, the SSC would have been the largest particle accelerator in the world, even surpassing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) currently operating in Switzerland. After the accelerator was shut down the buildings became the property of the U.S. Government. They are now used to house thousands of confidential government files.

APS declined to comment on the incident.

Happy April Fool's Day from the Physics Buzz team! <-- No one found this secret clue!

***UPDATE @ 4:01 P.M. EDT***April Fools! The Physics Buzz team members are each safely tucked into their cubicles and offices here in College Park. We wish everyone a happy April Fools Day and would also like to extend an apology to the Department of Homeland Security for any ill-will that came your way as a result of this post. It was all in good fun!

32 comments:

Well, I hope this is April fool's. Otherwise I can only say that I wish a painful and humiliating death with anal bleeding to everyone at the DHS. This kind of fascist treatment of abandoned buildings as more valuable than human life and scientific inquiry is disgusting.

Wow...people actually took this seriously? I clicked on this at first because I thought it was an article written by someone who was pissed because their buddies had gotten kicked out off a place, and was making an attempt at muckraking journalism as revenge. I was like "Waitaminnit" in the first paragraph, and instantly looked to the date...April 1st. That's all it took. This doesn't even have the right tone for a serious article, unless it was written by a 10th grader.